第一次大戦後における女子高等教育の社会的機能

抄録

This study deals with the period between 1920 and the time Japan undertook a wartime posture in 1935-during this period higher education for women indicated a singular increase in facilities and enrollment.
In considering why higher education for women showed so singular a quantitative development during this period, there is an explanation (diagrammatic explanation) that points to the prosperous situation of the economy following World War I, which brought about a change in the industrial and social structures-notably the development of the middle class-a change that entailed the “push” of arapid rise in the demand for further education and, simultaneously, the “pull” of a growing social demand for the graduates of higher education. This explanation is validated by many scholars. However, there is little mention about the specific meanings of “push” and “pull”, their organic unification and the specific mechanisms which led to their quantitative increase. Moreover, there are only few studies in support of such an explanation.
In this paper, therefore, I will scrutinize the process of development in higher education for women during the post WWI period, and the vectors of the “push” and the “pull” at work in this development-with particular attention to the following: 1) Structural characteristics of higher education for women;
2) The demographic (social) status of the entrants into higher education;
3) The occupational distribution of the graduates of higher education.